Fests and events, 12/31.

"Starting on Wednesday with a double feature of Laura (1944) and Daisy Kenyon (1947), Film Forum in Manhattan will present 23 films by Otto Preminger over 16 days," writes Dave Kehr in the New York Times. "Even today, more than 20 years after his death, Preminger is remembered less as an artist than as a Teutonic tyrant, famous for his glistening bald head, piercing blue eyes and volcanic temper - an image partly drawn from his occasional acting appearances as a heel-clicking Nazi (as in his own 1943 comedy Margin for Error) and partly from reality, as Foster Hirsch illustrates in his fine new biography, Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King.... But as the personality fades, the films remain and seem to grow in stature."

"No doubt the programmers of the British Film Institute's forthcoming Wim Wenders retrospective didn't plan it this way. But dividing the German director's 40-year career across two months has left a distinct 'before and after' look to his work." A preview from James Mottram in the Independent.

Earlier this month, Brian Darr saw Intolerance at the Castro Theatre, "courtesy of the SF Silent Film Festival and Photoplay Productions, whose Patrick Stanbury brought a tinted print from London, introduced the screening, and performed 42 manual projection speed changes to ensure that we had the best presentation of the film possible. What a revelation it was to see the film exhibited this way! For the first time, I felt I was starting to understand not only the technical scale and skill involved in the film's making, but also the way the four interlocking stories joined to create a unique and modern narrative." Recommendations for upcoming events in the Bay Area follow.

The House Next Door on runs another piece in conjunction with All That Fosse, the Film Society at Lincoln Center series on through tomorrow. Aaron Aradillas: "On stage, choreographing sexual-playful spasms of intricate movement, Fosse seemed to revel in his naughty-boy sense of play. But on film, he examined the self-destructive component of celebrity and asserted that self-loathing was the driving force of show business."

Posted by dwhudson at December 31, 2007 6:31 AM